Thursday, May 17, 2007

A University of Oregon committee has recommended that a controversial professor accused of faulty research be suspended for one year rather than fired, his attorney said. Even though the telegenic teacher is a grant-producing rainmaker - a darling of admiring leftist donors - he still may be canned.

Ward Churchill, a tenured professor of ethnic studies, touched off a national firestorm with an essay that compared some of the 2001 World Trade Center victims to Adolf Eichmann, a key planner of the Holocaust. It was some of his other work, however, including making up facts about global warming, that led the state Chancellor and another committee to recommended Churchill be fired.

The professor was also accused of misrepresenting the effects of federal laws on American Indians, wrongly claiming evidence indicated Capt. John Smith exposed Indians to smallpox in the 1600s, wrongly claiming that the sex and gender preferences of humans mirror gerbils', wrongly describing the breast augmentation surgery of actress-entertainer Lindsay Lohan, and claiming the work of a Canadian environmental group as his own.After the firing recommendations, he requested a review by the university faculty’s Privilege and Tenure Committee.

Churchill attorney Stephen Houze said Tuesday that he didn’t think Churchill should be disciplined at all, but he said the Privilege and Tenure Committee members were at least moving in the “right direction.” “This will make it more difficult for Dave Frohnmeyer (president of the University of Oregon) and the regents to fire him,” Houze said.

Houze said he has seen the committee’s report, and panel members “agree the whole thing was motivated” by Churchill’s Sept. 11 essay. Houze said the report found fault with some of Churchill’s footnotes in the research in question. He declined to discuss any other findings.

Frohnmeyer could still decide to fire Churchill, give him a lesser punishment or close the case.

Houze said Churchill would file a civil rights lawsuit if Frohnmeyer recommends any punishment.

The Privilege and Tenure Committee’s chairman, labor professor Alberto Bondigas, declined to comment. The committee’s report, sent to Frohnmeyer on May 8, was not publicly released. Frohnmeyer has 15 business days to respond.

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